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available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32479234/ Editorial Comment: Private equity investment in health care continues to catalyze consolidation among physician practices, particularly among procedural specialties. Interestingly private equity investment in health care delivery is largely driven by large cash reserves and the desire for asset diversification, particularly in industries less susceptible to economic recession. These authors performed semistructured interviews with individuals involved in private equity acquisition of physician practices, with emphasis on acquisition of ophthalmology practices. Interviewees included physician leaders, consultants, attorneys, private equity investors, health plan leaders and investment bankers. The authors found that ophthalmology was particularly attractive to private equity investment owing to the highly fragmented nature of the specialty, with 68% of eye care delivered by independent providers largely in small practices, representing a significant opportunity to develop economies of scale in back-end business functions as well as higher payment rates through consolidation. Similar to urology, there is a strong demand for ophthalmologists in the context of undersupply and an aging population. From the provider perspective physicians reported interest in selling their practices due to profound vertical integration of practices with hospitals, and the horizontal integration of practices layered on increasing regulatory burden and information technology expenses. There were conflicting beliefs about the predicted impact of private equity investment on the quality of care. Private equity investment in physician practices continues to grow, particularly among specialty practices such as ophthalmology, for a variety of reasons. There remain few data characterizing the downstream effect of practice acquisition with respect to physician satisfaction, patient satisfaction, quality and total costs of care. Given the relatively short investment horizon of many private equity funds, the exist may come before we know these answers. Matthew J. Resnick, MD, MPH, MMHC SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS, UROLOGICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PRACTICE PATTERNS 1371 Copyright © 2020 American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.